Resources for Middle School Science Education

From of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colorado

NEW!NCAR's Climate Discovery Online Courses
A Earth’s climate has evolved in remarkable ways since our planet’s origin.  It also changes over shorter time periods in response to natural processes and human actions.  These changes can impact our lives on a daily basis, now and in the future. Scientists draw upon many different, yet interrelated, fields of the geosciences as they strive to understand climate and global change.  The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is offering middle and high school teachers an opportunity to learn about the science of climate and how current research is advancing our understanding through, Climate Discovery, a series of three online workshops.

The Climate Discovery Teacher's Guide
This teacher's guide was produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research as a companion to the Climate Discovery exhibit at our Boulder, Colorado laboratory. Each unit contains lessons appropriate for grades 5-9 on a variety of Earth system science topics that facilitate student learning about our planet's climate system.

Teaching Earth and Atmospheric Science with the Kids' Crossing Web Site: A Guide for Educators
This 20-page guide outlines strategies for combining online learning of science content from our Kids' Crossing Web site with hands-on, inquiry focused activities, building literacy and science skills!

Atmospheric Explorers
Our ever-popular handouts full of weather experiments for the classroom are now available to you in pdf format!

Climate & Global Change Geoscience Education Workshop
The goal of the workshop is to provide standards-relevant science content, training on easy to implement inquiry-based classroom activities, and a broad overview of the geosciences in the context of climate and global change to educator-leaders who are teaching sciences at the middle and high school levels.

DLESE: Digital Library for Earth System Education
A grassroots, community-based effort involving teachers, students, and scientists working together to create a library of educational resources and services to support Earth system science education, at all levels, in both formal and informal settings. DLESE resources include electronic materials for both teachers and learners such as lesson plans, maps, images, data sets, visualizations, assessment activities, curriculum, online courses, and much more. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, DLESE is being designed, built, and governed by community members from around the country.

EXPLORE the Atmospheric Sciences
Newsletter of informal science education of UCAR and NCAR

The GLOBE Program
An exciting, worldwide, hands-on education and science program

Hurricane Strike!
A multimedia learning package created by COMET®, Hurricane Strike! is aimed primarily at middle school students. It integrates disaster safety and preparedness with science instruction, providing an engaging interactive learning environment. It also dovetails with science and safety content in the American Red Cross Masters of Disaster curriculum.

In a New Light: The Color of Weather and Climate (6.8 mb PDF)
This 72-page booklet (in PDF format) is the handout for the popular workshop presented at NSTA by UCAR Education and Outreach staff. The booklet provides extensive background information and directions for all hands-on activities presented during the workshop.

LEARN: Atmospheric Science Explorers
Enhancement program for science teachers

Living in the Greenhouse
This resource, created at NCAR/UCAR, allows students to learn about Earth's climate system and climate change in a whimsical, entirtaining way.

Modeling in the Geosciences Workshop
Environmental concerns are becoming increasingly pressing and complex, requiring citizens to have much better understanding of Earth systems and processes, and the methods scientists use to unravel this complexity to develop an understanding of the underlying systems. Models are an important tool used by scientists to study and better understand complex systems. To increase teacher understanding of models and their utility in Earth System Science studies, NASA’s Earth System Enterprise is sponsoring the Modeling in the Geosciences Workshop (MGW) for middle and high school teachers that will explore Earth System Modeling concepts that are relevant for classroom use.

NSDL: National Science Digital Library
The comprehensive source for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
Funded by the National Science Foundation.

Science Now
Newsletter for science teachers published by UCAR and SIRS, Inc., an educational publisher

Skymath
Mathematics curriculum using real-time weather data

Unidata
Sites Using Unidata Systems for K-12 and General Education Outreach

Web Weather for Kids
This website, created at UCAR, helps elementary and middle school students learn what makes weather wet and wild. Throughout the website are hands-on activities to try at home or in the classroom.

Water, Water Everywhere
Take your students on a tour of the water cycle. This section of the Kids Crossing website was created at NCAR/UCAR to help elementary and middle school students understandthe water cycle.

Windows to the Universe
A fun and different Web site about the Earth and Space sciences